Were back and there is free games of the month! Josh talks about some new things for the future. Alan recommends something for your health. Josh has his first Bad Description challenge.

Today’s bad description:“After his girlfriend is abducted by the stubborn antagonist. Tradesmen is forced to pursue through a dangerous construction site.”

A new year means a new list of the top 50 worst passwords of the year!

Bad news, #49 is joshua

Then we have some classics, like #43- letmein

New ones, like #39- harley

A new twist on qwerty at #26- zxcvbnm

The double-devil at 1#4- 666666

Down from #4 last year to #9 this year- qwerty

And for the 5th consecutive year:

Exactly what it says on the tin at #2- password

And continuing its reign as the #1 worst password- 123456

Bethesda just keeps shooting themselves in the foot over Fallout 76 – and I’m not even talking about the game itself!

First there was the Power Armor Edition of the game that came with a functional power armor helmet (which was pretty cool) and a bag to carry it that was supposed to be durable canvas, but was instead cheap, flimsy nylon

Even after shipping the product listing showed the original canvas bag that was advertised

Eventually the listing was updated to say nylon, but the picture still has not been updated

The initial response from Bethesda support? “We are sorry that you aren’t happy with the bag. The bag shown in the media was a prototype and was too expensive to make.”

They then offered 500 Atoms (about $5 worth of their in-game currency) to people that contacted support with proof of purchase

Then a week later they finally announced plans to make things right and manufacture proper canvas replacement bags

If you bought the Power Armor Edition you have until January 31st to submit a ticket at beth.games/2QDropM to get the replacement when they’re ready

But wait, there’s more!

Many users, after submitting tickets for the replacement, were shown all of the other users’ replacement tickets including addresses, emails, and partial credit card info

The problem was fixed in about 45 minutes, but they confirmed that 65 tickets containing personal information were exposed in that time

Apparently they’re contacting customers that were affected, but that’s not really a genie you can put back in the bottle

Then, to cap it all off, Nuka Dark Rum brought us a whole new fiasco

The idea here was that it would be a dark rum in the iconic Nuka Cola rocket bottle- pretty cool, right? Maybe even worth the $80 they were charging

Well after they started shipping, a note appeared at the tail end of the website talking about “the story of the intentional and complex design of the Nuka Dark Rum product”

Because you know any time you have to tell people something was intentional that really inspires confidence

It goes on to say how no corners were cut, and “it cost over 2X what it would have if we would have simply cast a glass mold”

Concerned yet?

They apparently decided that a glass bottle alone wouldn’t be dramatic enough, even though I think a glass rocket bottle would be pretty great all on its own

Which brings us to my favourite line- “Over 100 hours were spent just writing the code to create the 3D-printed prototype of the shells”

So they 3D printed a giant novelty plastic shell for a standard bottle- 13 inches tall and 6 inches wide

The cap is kind of neat, where instead of a screw-top it’s an integrated cork, but I’ve seen some videos of people trying to pour the rum and the plastic shell definitely doesn’t play nice with the glass bottle inside

Tidbits

According to the New York Times, Facebook is selling even more of your personal info than we thought!

Not only did they give companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Sony access to data on all your friends, but they also gave Netflix and Spotify the ability to read your private messages

The FCC in the US has reclassified text messages as an “information service” instead of a telecom service

What does this mean? They basically just repealed net neutrality for your text messages

Masked as a way to allow telecom companies to block spam messages, it also dismantles protective regulations and gives them the ability to censor or favour speech as they choose, potentially blocking or editing your message if they feel like it